


White

by bellatemple



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, Hurt!Sam, Hurt/Comfort, Hypothermia, Season/Series 08
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-22
Updated: 2012-12-22
Packaged: 2017-11-21 23:38:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/603320
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bellatemple/pseuds/bellatemple
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Between the snow and Sam's refusal to talk to him, Dean's in about the last place he wants to be.  That won't stop him from saving Sam's ass, anyway, though.</p>
            </blockquote>





	White

If asked, Dean would probably have put rural upstate New York, home of some of America's snowiest towns and chock way-too-full of trees, trees, and more trees, at pretty much the bottom of the list of places he wanted to be in late December. But apparently Dean wasn't the only person Sam liked to leave behind, and whatever had happened between him and his girl while Dean cleaned up after Martin had him turning a particularly panicked tail. 

Upstate New York wasn't _quite_ as far as they could get from Kermit, Texas without leaving the continental United States, but it was damn close. 

And, of course, once Sam got them up there, he didn't bother sticking around long, what with how he was refusing to speak to Dean and all. To be fair, Dean knew he wasn't exactly full of warmth and cuddles the few times Sam _did_ deign to to talk to him. Things hadn't been right between them since Dean got back from Purgatory, and he for one was tired of pretending they were. He was still waiting for Sam to cut and run once and for all, since he clearly wasn't that concerned with where Dean ultimately ended up. If he hadn't dumped his bag when he came in -- and if they weren't in the middle of Bum Fuck, Lake Effect Country -- Dean was pretty sure "I need some air" would have been "I'm never coming back."

Before Purgatory, this would be just where Dean would reach for a drink. And fuck, he wasn't super interested in bucking that particular tradition. He needed something to entertain himself with while Sam got his hissy fit on, and the only things he could find on TV right now were cheesy rehashes of the same three Christmas stories and people talking about the damn Mayan apocalypse. If the Mayans were trying to end the world, they were doing a piss poor job of it, and frankly, the porn version of _It's a Wonderful Life_ was too high concept for Dean's tastes. 

He was a beer and a half in when he noticed the temperature had dropped. It'd happened slow enough that it could've been the piece-of-shit heater crapping out, but Dean's luck was never that good. Still, there was a moment -- just one small moment -- when he considered finishing his beer before reaching for the salt. 

Ghosts had no sense of timing. 

He raised his shotgun as he turned, almost casually, beer bottle still hanging from the fingers of his free hand. He was struck first by the bright afternoon light coming through the window. At some point it'd started snowing, and all Dean could make out from this angle was an expanse of white. He had to blink several times, shotgun still raised, before he could make out the washed out blue figure standing in front of the window. Its back was turned to Dean, but between flickers, he could make out the tautness of its shoulders as it watched the snowfall. 

It was an old guy, probably a farmer, judging by the stained, gritty pants, the dusty shirt and cap. The figure's clothes were practical and next to impossible to date by style alone, though its suspenders made Dean think it was probably early twentieth century, if not older. When Dean finished his beer with a long swig and cocked his gun, the spirit barely reacted, just twitching its head to glance back over its shoulder, then looking back out at the snow. Dean waited a moment longer, wondering what the spirit's story was, then opened his mouth to call out, offer up some half-assed taunt. It didn't sit right to shoot a spirit that wasn't even looking threatening. Before he could speak, the spirit moved, stepping out through the window and the wall that held it, into the snow. Dean saw it glance back at him again before it vanished into the blinding white. 

He stood still a moment longer, gun still raised, though the muzzle was starting to droop. The temperature started to rise again almost immediately, the heater chugging away, putting out warmth and the faint smell of burnt hair. 

"Okay," he said, the word drawing out as he lowered the shotgun. "That's kind of new." He set the beer bottle down and, still holding the shotgun at ready, moved to the window. The salt line he'd put down after Sam had left was broken in an almost-even line by the edge of the window pane. It must have taken a hell of a lot of focus, blowing the crystals away with such a narrow, directed breeze, especially without alerting Dean that anything was going on. Whatever the ghost was up to, it was damn determined to do it. 

Dean looked up out the window again, half expecting to see the spirit staring in at him like something out of _The Twilight Zone_. Instead, he was greeted with that same expanse of white, almost blinding in its intensity compared to the dim motel room. He squinted against it and could just make out the shape of the Impala in the lot, her side panels still dark where the snow slid off the metal. 

"Son of a bitch." 

Sam had gone for a walk in a goddamn white out. 

Dean threw open the door, only barely remembering to grab his coat as he stepped out onto the covered walkway that lined the front of the motel. The wind cut straight through his flannel, spraying snowflakes in his face for a moment before it shifted. From out here he could make out the gray smudges of the treeline past the motel parking lot, but not a whole hell of a lot else. He yanked his coat on and tucked the shotgun away before digging in his pockets for his gloves. 

"Sam!" he called, his voice sounding dead against his own ears. People stuck in white outs could get lost only ten feet away from home. It wasn't a long shot to think Sam might be just out in the parking lot. 

But Winchester luck didn't work that way. 

"Sammy!" Dean stepped out to the very edge of the covered walkway and paused, his toes in the snow drift that marked the curb. Going out into the white out to look for Sam was a suicide mission. If the storm didn't clear up soon, he'd just get his own ass lost and they'd both end up mancicles. And, really, he had no reason to think Sam was even out _in_ the snow. Town wasn't that far, he could be in a diner flirting with the waitress right now while they waited for it all to clear up. The smart thing to do was to go back inside, keep an eye on the weather reports, and wait for the storm to pass over. Then he could call Sam and bitch him out for making Dean worry. 

Dean stayed at the edge of the walkway, hand raised in a futile attempt to block the shifting wind and snow as he kept peering into the whiteness. Someone sighed to his left, barely a rustle of sound, and Dean twisted, reaching for his shotgun. The fucking farmer spirit had lured him out here, and he wasn't about to let it -- 

It was a girl, maybe thirteen or fourteen years old. She wore too much eye make up, her blond hair pulled into a high side ponytail. She stood shivering in a ragged down jacket with a crumbled lift ticket stuck to the zipper. The wind blew the snow right through her. 

He caught a flicker of movement out of the corner of his eye and turned again, this time to find a woman and a man, old before their time, wearing clothes so ancient that Dean wasn't sure America was even a country when they'd last been alive. It was a rare thing to see ghosts that old; most couldn't make it past their 150th birthday before some hunter or other caught wind of them and took them out. The couple was either very lucky -- or very, very peaceful. 

The girl cleared her throat, and Dean turned back, his breath coming fast and tight in his chest. "What?" he asked. "What do you want from me?" Neither the girl nor the couple approached, just stared. Dean aimed the shotgun at the girl's head. "What do you want?!" 

The girl didn't flinch. She barely moved, just turning her head to look out at the snow. Dean followed her gaze and saw the farmer, standing a little ways out into the parking, still facing away from him towards the tree line. He raised one gnarled hand and pointed into the white. 

"If you think you're going to get me to freeze to death," Dean said. "You can think again." 

The couple on Dean's right lifted their hands and pointed in the same direction the farmer was. Dean looked back down to the girl, who continued to stare at him. 

"He's waiting," she said. Dean caught a flash of ghostly braces on her teeth before she flickered out, reappearing out in the snowy parking lot. "For you." 

Dean swallowed hard. "You know where Sam is." The girl tilted her head. Her ponytail held eerily still, even as snow swirled around her. 

"It's cold," she said. "It's so cold." 

Dean hesitated, his feet balanced on the very edge of the walkway again. The spirits stood out sharply despite the glare of the snow, the only clearly defined things in the lot. They were like will-o-the-wisps, drawing him forward into unknown territory. The ground could give way from under him at any moment. 

He stepped off the curb. 

The spirits multiplied as they walked, more and more joining the strange, macabre parade surrounding him. They wore a range of clothes from all different eras. Some were old and withered when they died, some only children. The girl in her 80s ski parka stuck close to Dean, pausing now and then to point out pitfalls and rocks hidden under the snow. The wind blew hard enough now that Dean had trouble making out even the dense banks of trees. He was walking through a cold, wet void, marching with the dead. 

And then they vanished, flickering out one by one until only the girl was left. The corners of her lips started to lift in a smile, and Dean lunged for her, cursing. She slipped literally through his fingers, and he pitched forward into the snow, the shotgun falling out of his hands. 

The snow beneath him grunted instead of crunched, and Dean caught a faceful of frozen hair. 

"Sam." He shoved himself awkwardly to his knees and fumbled in the snow. Sam was curled in on himself, his body shuddering hard. "Goddammit, Sam, you fucking moron." Dean grabbed him under the arms, trying to tug him out of his hunched position. He hissed through his teeth as the snow covering his brother started to soak through his gloves, numbing his fingers. "Come on, get up. Get your ass up." 

Sam shook his head -- Dean could make out the dark of his hair as the action shook some of the snow off. "C-can't," he said, squirming to get out of Dean's grip. "G-g-gotta wait it-t out. Gah-gotta --"

"Brilliant plan," Dean said, trying not to focus on the list of symptoms traipsing through his head. Heavy shivering. Difficulty speaking. Lack of coordination. Mental confusion. "If you start taking off your clothes," he said, "I swear, I will punch you in the face." 

Sam tensed up in Dean's grip, but at least stopped trying to get out of it. "Dean?" He twisted again, this time groping at Dean's face with his icy hands. It was like being slapped with frozen sausages. "N-no n-n-no no no you're d-d-dead, you d-died, you can't-t --"

Dean shoved Sam's hands aside and managed to wrap his arms around Sam's chest, yanking him upright and nearly sending them both toppling backwards into the snow. "We're both dead if we don't get inside," he grumbled. Despite all the action and moving around, Dean was starting to feel the cold now, too. The snow was making its way down the back of his collar and into the tops of his boots, and he remembered belatedly that alcohol and hypothermia weather weren't exactly best pals. "Now get your ass in gear. We've got a nice warm motel room waiting for us. The porn channels are barely even scrambled." He twisted his head and peered to his left and right, trying to work out which direction he'd come from. Getting back to the motel room was going to be easier said than done. 

"Ssspirit," Sam said. 

"I'm not dead, dammit," Dean said, and Sam started squirming in his arms again. 

"Ssspirit," he said again. "Shoot 'em, shoot 'em!" 

Dean frowned down at Sam, then followed his gaze, eyes going wide. The army of spirits was back, and seemed to have doubled in size. They were appearing on all sides, a faintly glowing blue mass of the bloodless dead. 

Just how many people had frozen to death out here, over the centuries? 

"Okay," Dean said. "Okay, I kind of have my hands full here." He nodded down to Sam, who was still flailing ineffectually in his grip, smacking everything in reach with his giant, floppy hands. "So I'm really hoping you all are good guys." He twisted his head until he spotted the 80s ski girl, almost directly behind him. "Are you good guys?" 

"It's too cold," the girl said. 

"You're a fucking genius," Dean said. 

She smiled faintly, ghostly braces flashing again, then turned and started walking. The crowd of spirits shifted too, all headed in the same direction. Dean shifted his grip to get one of Sam's arms up over his shoulder and started tugging him along. 

"Come on," he said. "Follow the pretty lights." 

"Fucker," Sam said in return, and Dean couldn't help but smile. 

The walk back to the motel took nearly twice as long as the walk out to where Sam had been hiding near as Dean could tell, though it was hard to mark time or distance when you couldn't see much more than white and ghostly blue. Sam's legs gave out on him five times along the way, each time dragging Dean a little bit closer to the ground as they went, and on the fifth, Dean had started to despair that they were ever actually going to make it. He made a last, desperate shove back to his feet, Sam still clutched in his arms, and nearly walked right into a white van parked at the edge of the motel parking lot. The snow was finally starting to slow again, and the dark motel facade appeared like a gash against the whiteness. Dean managed to prop Sam up by the door jam while he unlocked their room, then shoved his brother through the doorway practically on top of the heater before stumbling in after him and slamming the door. The room felt like a furnace compared to the outdoors, and Dean let out a long, slow sigh of relief. He started peeling off his gloves, then turned his attention to getting Sam out of his wet clothes and wrapped up in a nice dry comforter. 

"You need a compress?" he asked, once he was in dry clothes of his own. Sam blinked at him owlishly from his cocoon of paisley bedspread. "I am so not cuddling you back to health." 

Sam just blinked at him again, and Dean groaned. 

"You know, maybe it's a good thing you didn't come looking for me in Purgatory," he said as he pulled the comforter off the other bed and pulled it over his shoulders, elbowing his way in next to Sam so that they were both huddled together under the blankets by the heater. "You wouldn't have survived a day." 

"Y-you let --" Sam said, then clenched his jaw and shook his head hard. Dean could tell he was already dragging his way out of the hypothermic delirium. "You followed a bunch of _ghosts_ to find me." 

"You're freaking lucky I did," Dean said, hunching further into the blankets and wishing he'd grabbed another beer first. "You'd be getting ready to haunt a snow drift yourself right now, otherwise." 

"H-how did you know?" Something in Sam's voice sounded so lost. When Dean closed his eyes, he could almost picture the brother he'd grown up with, still sad and angry but looking up to Dean for the answers. "How'd you know they wouldn't turn on you?" 

Dean shrugged. "I don't know," he admitted. "I guess it was just . . . a leap of faith." 

"You don't have any faith," Sam said. 

"No," said Dean. He took a deep breath. "But maybe after a year surrounded by monsters, I've learned how to spot the good ones." 

Sam was silent then, and Dean sat quietly with him, counting his breaths as they slowly lengthened and evened out, as his shivers died down and he started to slump more and more into Dean's side. Almost freezing to death was exhausting, and Dean knew Sam would sleep like a rock, tonight. 

"Come on," Dean said finally, shifting so his shoulder was tucked beneath Sam's. "Let's get you to bed." 

Sam moved easily this time, albeit sluggishly, and it didn't take long for Dean to get him horizontal. When he started to straighten up, though, Sam grabbed hold of his arm, pulling him back down. Dean rolled his eyes, but let himself be tugged into the bed. He told himself that Sam still needed the extra body heat, and found himself curling up against his brother's body. He thought he'd just stay until Sam fell asleep, ignoring the way his own eyes were starting to drift closed. 

On the very edge of sleep, Sam shifted, and Dean cracked one eye open. 

"I still don't like Benny," Sam said softly. Dean snorted, closing his eye and pressing his forehead into Sam's shoulder.

"Fuck you, Sam." 

The End


End file.
